“What do you want me to do? Tear my clothes and wail about how much it bothers me that I, the wayward daughter of Eva Claremont, have already outlived the ideal woman, a person who gave so much beauty to the world during her short stay on it? Do you want that sort of tragic eloquence?”
Her throat burned, so she couldn’t talk anymore.
“Grieving would be a start,” he said.
Closing her eyes, Dawn sighed, the sound short, soft, and even a little bitter. “Hate to disappoint you, but she died when I was about a month old, and her blood doesn’t exactly run through me. Unlike her, I’m not much for drama.”
“And that’s why you went into the biz.”
She wasn’t about to allow Amateur Freud Hour here, explaining how her career was a connection to Mommy while simultaneously being a big screw-you to Eva’s indelible glamour. Sure, maybe Dawn was getting rebellious revenge against a parent who’d left too early, and maybe she was even enjoying how lovely starlet Eva wouldn’t have approved of her daughter’s gritty career. But this stranger didn’t have to know any of that—Dawn’s hyper self-awareness provided all the judgmental nitpicking she needed.
“Is my mother’s oeuvre that important to my dad’s disappearance, Mr….?”
Once again, he dodged, this time with an appreciation for her tenacity in his whisper. “I believe there are links.”
“Then tell me already.” She battled through the mental mist to stand, but only got to the edge of the couch.
“I’m not sure you’d believe any of it, Dawn.”
“Try me. What are you all hiding around here?”
The soft electronic fizz of the speakers divided them as he stayed quiet. With the last of her strength, she pushed to her feet. The world became a little clearer, as if she’d broken through the surface of a pond and could hear, see again. She stood in front of the TV, still wavering, searching for a hidden camera, desperate for a clue.
“You won’t find anything,” he said, sounding impressed for some reason. “Breisi set this up so that I’m next to impossible to trace.”
“Really. Let’s see. Since you won’t tell me jack about Frank…” She ran a hand under the TV, finding nothing amiss. “What’s with Breisi anyway? And Kiko?” Gaining lucidity and composure by the second, she kept searching, standing on her tiptoes to get a gander at the underbelly of the screen. “It wasn’t like your employees were cheering to see me.”
From where she was standing, The Voice fully enveloped her, sending brittle tremors of awareness through her skin, under it. She closed her eyes again, liking this, wanting this to stop so she could concentrate on why she was actually here.
Shaking her head free of its fuzz, she forced alertness.
“I don’t understand why Kiko and Breisi would’ve been rude,” The Voice said. “Frank rarely discussed Eva, but he talked about you as if you walk on water.”
Peering around, she thought, Screw it, and climbed onto the colossal desk. From there, she got a different vantage point of the speaker. Didn’t help.
Too bad she sucked at technology. Even if she had step-by-step directions, she wouldn’t know how this setup worked.
“Walk on water, huh?” Dawn breathed in big gulps of air, almost back to her old self now. “Hardly. But I am quite a sight when I’m walking on mahogany.”
She tapped her boot on his desktop, daring him to say something.
“Cherry wood,” he whispered. “And that surface has withstood a lot more than you.”
“Well. Have you been a bad boss man, using your desk for shenanigans with your secretary, Mr….?”
Another mild laugh, but this one wasn’t very nice. It was ragged. Dark. “You can’t possibly imagine what’s found itself with its back to that wood.”
Dawn didn’t say anything for a moment, not with all the doubts she was having about Limpet and Associates. There was something creepier than their interior decorations going on here, something way out of her league.
As nonchalantly as she could, she dropped to the carpet and walked around to the side of the desk, where the chair rested. There, she skimmed her hand over the wood, pausing when she found something—a groove. She bent to inspect it.
“I’m not the one being questioned here,” The Voice reminded her.“Dawn.”
She felt that mental pull again, a jarring loss of her senses, but she pushed against it, concentrating on the groove instead. It was sharp, like the scar from an ax that had embedded itself there.
That’s when Kiko bowled into the room with Breisi on his tail. Without preamble, Dawn gasped to full attention, roaring on all cylinders again, oddly refreshed.
It was almost as if she’d just woken up, like the past few minutes were pieces of a scattered puzzle and she’d just arrived in the office to fit them back together.
“Thank you, Dawn,” The Voice whispered. “You’re stronger than I imagined.”
Before she could ask what that meant, Kiko spoke.
“Sorry we took so long.” He was still in excitement mode and oblivious to everything else. “Our locator turned up something big.”
Breisi wore an apron that came to mid-thigh and revealed black parachute pants. Up close, she looked older than Dawn had first thought, with fine wrinkles hugging her eyes and mouth. Dawn doubted they were from smiling, either.
“Nathan Pennybaker just got back into the country,” Breisi said. “Kiko and I need to pay him a visit.”
“And we should take her with us.” Kiko glanced at Dawn.
She blinked, the past half hour of weirdness all but forgotten.
“It’s too soon,” The Voice said.
Kiko stepped forward, shaking his finger at the TV. Aha—the screen acted as The Voice’s “eye,” his face.
But where was the rest of him? Dawn thought. Behind the wall in a control room? Down the street in another house?
A chill fluttered up her spine as she focused on the TV, feeling it watching her….
“Remember what I saw?” Kiko continued. “She’s key.”
“Me?” she asked. “I’m…what?”
Again, the psychic brushed his gaze over her, and she felt as if he were actually digging around her heart, trying to pull it out. Tired of feeling under attack, she stepped back, protectively laying her hand over her chest.
He turned back to the TV while Breisi kept an eye on Dawn. Unidentifiable emotion flashed over the other woman’s eyes, but she glanced away before Dawn could define it.
“We need her,” Kiko said. “So let’s just cut to the chase, put Dawn on the payroll, and deal.”
“Payroll?” This was all going too fast, a scribbled comic-horror strip. But she had to find Frank, and if they were willing to help, she’d take their offer—no two ways about it. It wasn’t as if her job installing cabinets or laying tile in Virginia was going to miss her.Thiswas where she needed to be. “All right, I’ll do anything, tag along with you, answer any questions…”
Over the speakers, The Voice sighed. Harsh. Resigned? “Anything,” he repeated. “You are telling me how far you would go to find your father?”
Her heart picked up speed. “I’d doanythingit takes.”
Breisi came to stand beside her, parallel to Kiko.
“Frank was working on finding a missing little boy whose mother hired us,” she said.
A little boy? Unsettled, Dawn turned away from them. That meant facing a wrecked mom, digging into the possibility of what might have happened to the child…to Frank.
She crossed her arms over her chest. But if this was an avenue to find him, she had to take it.
Before she could respond, the plasma TV blipped to life, an eye of Big Brother. In its iris was a scene fromDiaper Derby, a very bad comedy that had opened at thirty-three million dollars a couple weeks ago at the box office. How The Voice had gotten a hold of it already, Dawn didn’t know. Maybe it was a pirated copy. If it was, she might have to give him a good cuffing, because that sort of crap cut into film profits and,
thus, her paychecks—if she could ever get another film gig.
The scene played out. In a cozy loft somewhere in a clean, pristine, fictional big city found only in the movies, two grizzled men, who were clearly not fatherhood material, were arguing over a crib that was emanating fake baby cries. They were tug-of-warring a soiled diaper between them.
Dawn didn’t want to guess what was about to happen next. But it did happen, a big explosion of…
“There,” The Voice said, the TV freezing on a most unfortunate image.
Dawn, Kiko, and Breisi all shook their heads.
“Comedy at its finest,” Kiko said. “I swear, today’s movies—”
“Kiko.”The Voice obviously had another point in mind. “Dawn, did you see that?”
“I saw plenty.”
“I’m referring to the case. Just focus on the windows in the rear of their room.”
When she glanced back, the picture had been rewound and frozen again, this time to a frame in which the men were back to pulling at the intact diaper.
“Watch,” The Voice said, and the image zoomed in to focus on the windows in the background.
At first she didn’t catch anything. Just a glare, a play of light from a super-powered bulb. But the more she looked, the more she saw in the close-up:
A young boy with big blue eyes and a striped shirt, scratching at the window. He looked like he couldn’t have been more than a preteen, but he’d tried to force his age by growing his black hair into a careless mop; there were piercings, too—a diamond stud in his nose, his eyebrow.
He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t…
“So he trespassed onto a set,” Dawn said, and even though she sounded as smooth as dry ice, she was unable to tear her eyes away. “Why is everyone acting shocked about a boy in a fake window? He wandered into a shot. It’s not like he’s floating up twelve stories. He’s not a ghost or something.”
Both Breisi and Kiko glanced at each other, then back at Dawn.
She wasn’t so sure she realized the full extent of what was going on. Big shocker. It matched the entire Limpet experience so far. Still, she was definitely going to get her answers soon, come hell or high water.
Kiko spoke up. “We’ve consulted with special effects wizards and they say no movie magic was used. But more important than that, this boy’s mom tells us that superimposing the kid’s image isn’t possible anyway….”
“Dawn.” The Voice paused. He’d said her name like she’d already failed him. “You don’t recognize him?”
Maybe she did. Or maybe her mind just wasn’t accepting it.
But Kiko helpfully jumped in.
“That’s Robby Pennybaker,” he said. “And you, of all people, should know that he shouldn’t be anywhere near that movie.”
Her mind…not accepting this…shutting down…
“Not,” Kiko added, “when he died twenty-three years ago.”
Four
The Lost Little Boy
After the meeting, Kiko persuaded his boss to allow Dawn to go with him and Breisi to the Pennybaker home for an innocuous round of questioning with Robby’s dad. Although the mysterious Voice wasn’t that excited about her riding along, Kiko was adamant—no doubt because, in the psychic’s all-knowing mind, Frank’s daughter was meant be on this case with them. The Voice had to have a lot of faith in Kiko’s talents to go along with this.
And, even though she didn’t really buy into the vision thing, she couldn’t fly in the face of this opportunity, either.
In any event, the boss had made his employees promise to always keep Dawn in their sights, safe. Truthfully, she didn’t feel the need for babysitting, but if she wanted to be there, following directions from the spook crew was mandatory.
And that’s how she got to this point: stuck in the backseat of Breisi’s 4Runner. There were some wanky features, like the panels that had been built into the floor and the compartments in the doors. Also, in the rear storage area, gray canvas covered something Kiko wouldn’t explain, so Dawn had stopped asking within the first few minutes. It smelled like grease and steel. That, mixed with the tropical air freshener attached to Breisi’s vents, tumbled Dawn’s stomach.
As they roared out of the Hills and along the 405 Freeway to Brentwood, where the Pennybakers lived in a swanky mini-mansion close to where OJ Simpson had performed the last leg of his Freedom Rider Bronco fiasco, she watched the night embrace L.A. Lights shimmered in the valley, winking and seducing as they frosted the dark glass of skyscrapers. Back in the distance, the famous Hollywood sign rested against the withered skin of Mount Lee. It was lit by floodlights, crooked in its dotage but alive with the hope and sparkle of people who still had some dreams left.
In a good mood, Kiko turned around in his seat, wearing sunglasses. God, that chapped her hide. There was no reason to wear those things at night unless you were a poseur.
“Smooth as a Lamborghini, huh, Dawn?”
“I’ve never had the pleasure of driving one.”
“Me, either; but I will. You watch. One day, I’ll have a garage full of ’em after I score the right roles. Right now, I’m just a face in the crowd, but my agent’s got a few jobs cooking. Something along the lines ofThe Station Agent. Or a stage production ofWaiting for Godot. I’m up for Vladmir in this production where we would dress like pawns being used in the game of life.”
“Interesting,” she said, distracted by all the questions she needed answered.
“I’m here to tell you,” he continued, on a roll, “that actors of my talent have been fucked ever sinceLord of the RingsandStar Warsended. Gimme a hobbit to double or an Ewok to play any day of the week, I say. All I want to do is be on that screen. That’s how it’s always been, too, ever since I was just a rugrat from Phoenix. I was in school plays and all that stuff, but I knew movies were the golden ticket. That’s why I came out to L.A., right out of twelfth grade. I was a starving actor for a while, but then the boss came calling one day after thisthinghappened….”
At the way he trailed off, Dawn’s interest was piqued.“Thing?”
“Yeah.” Kiko frowned. “It was in the papers—”
“Whatthing, Kiko?” Man, he liked to flap those gums.
He paused, like this was allowing the memory time to fully form. Then, shrugging, he said, “There was a guy going around my old neighborhood, breaking into apartments and attacking women. I knew who he was. He just lived two doors down and, one day, he left his jacket by the mailboxes. When I touched it, I sensed what he’d been up to.”
She hadn’t expected such a sobering story. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. I have psychometric talents along with precognition and telepathy.”
She wanted to ask more, but he was already talking again.
“I started bugging the police about him before he could ruin another woman’s life, but they, of course, didn’t believe me. I’m used to that though, so I cut to the chase and told them I was going to do something about the guy myself if they were just going to sit on their asses and let him rape his way through L.A.”
Kiko, the vigilante? “So did you do…something?”
The psychic smirked. “I didn’t have to. This detective who’d already worked with sixth-sense consultants and believed in its value investigated my neighbor. She ended up gathering enough evidence to nail him pretty quick.”
“Wow.” Dawn just sat there. “You’re, like, a hero then.”
“Yes, I am.”
He rushed on, making her wonder if he actually had the capacity for humility. Small chance, but maybe.
“The press got a hold of the story, and that’s how the boss found me. He liked my ‘interest in justice’ besides all the psychic talent.”
“You were in the news? Aren’t you afraid this rapist will have a vendetta against you?”
“Not really. He hanged himself in prison.”
Silence struck the air. Breisi sighed and inserted a receiver in her right ear and pushed a glowing red bu
tton in the middle of the steering wheel. The 4Runner revved, then jetted to a higher speed.
Thrown back in her seat, Dawn recovered, then scooted forward. She gestured toward the button. “What’sthat?”
There. Change the subject, pronto. It helped her to stop worrying about Frank’s part in this PI firm that required a “sense of justice” from its employees. It kept her from thinking about Breisi’s part in it. Frank’s part in it.
Breisi was acting like the backseat was vacant, but Kiko was glad to answer.
“That’s one of her antiradar gadgets. It saves us a lot of time.” Kiko tapped his ear. “And she likes to monitor.”
“Police scanners?”
“Not right now. The Dodgers are playing the Giants, so don’t talk to her unless it’s highly necessary.”
Dawn didn’t need an excuse to do that, but she played “nice” instead. Frank would’ve been proud.
She shifted back into her seat, finally at her wits’ end with these people. “So…What’s going on with Mr. Limpet?”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Why?”
He took off his sunglasses and gave her a blank look.
“Oh, come on, Kiko. For starters, did you think I wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t in the room for our entire conversation?”
“The boss just enjoys his privacy.”
“You’ve never wondered? Man, do you guys ever solve anything or do you just run around in that Hammer House of Horror getting your jollies from blowing the minds of people who manage to get past the door?”
Kiko, as compact as he was, turned his entire body around to face her. “We’re aces in what we do, but…well, our clientele is slightly different from the norm. Breisi and I handle the customer service and aboveboard groundwork. None of the clients gets to see the boss like you did.”
“I didn’t exactlyseehim.”
“At least you made it into the office.”
“Yeah, barely.” A phantom throb started between her legs again. God. “By the way, it was a really…I search for the word…differentexperience talking with him.”
Night Rising Page 3
